The Seattle Seahawks lost four key starters/starting-level contributors off their Super Bowl-winning roster this offseason. Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker, Coby Bryant and Riq Woolen have new homes with big paychecks.
In response, Seattle drafted three replacements and signed a fourth. Let’s see how the math comes out on the other end for John Schneider and the Seahawks.
First up, the departed.
Boye Mafe
Total money: $60 million. Guaranteed: $19 million. Average Per Year: $20 million.
Kenneth Walker
Total money: $43.05 million. Who
is negotiating these extra 50k? Guaranteed: $28.7 million. APY: $14.35 million.
Coby Bryant
Total money: $40 million. Guaranteed: $25.75 million. APY: $13.3 million.
Riq Woolen
This is the weird one. One year, $12 million, fully guaranteed. If it matters to anyone, Philadelphia is taking over $8m of the cap hit in a 2027 void year.
Over $150 million walked out the door over a three-year period between the four players. In their place are Jadarian Price, Bud Clark, Julian Neal, and Dante Fowler.
Understandably this is a little simplistic. They haven’t earned starting roles, it’s not as simple as a one-for-one trade out, etc. I get it. But this is as clean a comparison as we’re going to get, and chances are actually better than not that these four do end up as effective replacements for their predecessors during the 2026 season. Here are their contracts:
Dante Fowler
One year, up to $5 million. Official numbers are not released yet, but it will be a maximum of $5m so let’s plan on that.
Jadarian Price
Pick 32 should net a 4-year, $16.78 million deal.
Bud Clark
Pick 64 will be about $8 million total, an average of $1.98 million per year.
Julian Neal
We will thank Mr. Neal for actually signing his rookie deal already. Neal’s contract is $6.69 million total money, $1.3 million guaranteed, and $1.67 million APY.
Now for the comparison.
It’s not worth doing a true 2026 to 2026 look, because each of the new teams (except for the Eagles) heavily weighted the contracts in the back end. Ken Walker’s is especially interesting, costing just over $5 mil this year and $18 million next season.
But across the board, the combo of Mafe, Bryant, Walker and Woolen will make $73 million guaranteed. Max value is $155 million.
Whereas the newcomers Fowler, Price, Neal and Clark should make around $18 million guaranteed with a max value of $36.48 million.
It’s one fourth the cost for four players. This is the turnover in the NFL. I’d argue that Bryant got a strong deal, Walker and Mafe got overpaid, and Woolen got punished for being a loose cannon.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Do you believe that these rookies and Fowler will be one-fourth the players as their counterparts in 2026? Will they be comparable? Even close?
Technically, Rashid Shaheed was the team’s most expensive free agent. But he’s returning. Besides him, Dante Fowler is the team’s highest-paid acquisition this offseason, and comically at $5 million it’s still not that close. The other deals are for 1 or 2 million.
The point is this: I can’t recall the last time Seattle (or any NFL team) spent the first three draft picks and their top free agent to literally address the primary positions that left the roster. It’s fascinating.
It will be even more so if it works out.
